Re: Wake up to reality

Michael Sierchio sez...
> 
> shilo layston wrote:
> 
>  > Poul-Henning Kamp sez...
> 
>  >> FreeBSD is a great operating system for embedded use and people all over
>  >> the world use this to their advantage.
>  >
>  > Judging on what I have heard over my career in embedded development,
>  > *BSD (let alone FreeBSD) is almost completely unknown in the embedded market.
>  > WindRiver, GreenHills, QNX, ... and possibly some Linuxs are the owners
>  > of that marketplace.  [Maybe the notable exception is Juniper Networks;
>  > I've heard they're a big BSD shop]
> 
> If you had the slightest idea what you were talking about, you'd know
> the provenance of WindRiver and VxWorks and the embedded OS in Brocade
> fiber channel switches, etc. etc. are all BSD.

Please attribute the quotes properly; I am not "shilo layston", and yet
I am the author of the paragraph that you are quoting.

As far as WindRiver goes, the "VxWorks FAQ" makes no mention of this
"BSD provenance of VxWorks", I suggest you contact the FAQ maintainer
and point this out so that other people "without the slightest idea
of what we are talking about" like me don't make the same mistake.  I
had also not realized that VxWorks was the sole OS WindRiver is
associated with.

The point that I was trying to make was not that certain commercial
RTOSs may have "come from" BSD (or other forms of UNIX), but rather
that "in my experience" (paraphrasing) all of the contracts I have been
involved with (20+ years, most of them in the embedded/realtime arena)
have, in general, shown a complete lack of awareness of *BSD.

*That* is what I feel needs to be addressed.

I am sure there are companies using FreeBSD (and other BSDs).  The
challenge is getting the awareness out there and getting to be in the
same ballpark as the other OSs mentioned.

It's entirely possible that FreeBSD is more prevalent than what I've
experienced.  I have not experienced vast deserts of sand, and yet I
am told they exist :-)  Are they prevalent where I live?  No.

Cheers,
-RK

--
Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices
Realtime Systems Architecture, Consulting, Books and Training at www.parse.com
Looking for Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-1 through PDP-15 minicomputers!